Search - Midnight Configuration :: Dark Desires

What else would you expect from Cleopatra?

Josh E. | Northeastern, USA | 07/12/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I was informed of this group via Gavin Baddley's "Goth Chic". Though his book was well-written, and he obviously played favorites with some of his subjects, his favoritism torwards this group was off-putting to say the least. He described frontman Trevor Bammford as a key memeber of the UK Goth scene. If that's the case, I can see why it's suffering.As with any Cleopatra release, Midnight Configuration's "Dark Desires" is an excerise on how far a group can take the tennets of Goth/Industrial into the depths of cornball. To begin the plunge, the production quality is inexcusable. I know Cleopatra is a Goth label, and as such, they might have this half-baked notion that 80's production quality gives a record a legitimate "goth" sound.Wrong. The only sound it gives is poor production.I was also given the impression from Baddeley's book that this band had something new to offer. How wrong I was. Nothing here but the standard cheesy synth and guitar combination you would find on a Electric Hellfire Club record, ironically enough, a labelmate of Midnight. Trevor even uses the silly "Devil" vocals that EHC is known to employ. It goes without saying that those vocals nearly made me double over in laughter. If the use of horrible vocals is where they culled the "black industrial" moniker, then I see it perfectly justifiable.The more I look at the comparisons, Midnight Syndication seems like a UK version of the Electric Hellfire Club with the cheese turned to 11. Laughable synth and guitar work, the cliche female vocals used to establish a "beauty and the beast" atmosphere, and over course, the overused bondage/Satan juxtapostion.My advice for you, the discnerning listener, is to leave Cleopatra, and any of there artists, alone. They've proved to me on a regular basis to be the worst label Goth has to offer. Go with Metropolis or Beggars Banquet if you want Goth/Industrial artists that doesn't use boring Satanic/BDSM imagery to obscure the fact that have no real talent."

=)

Avid Reader | USA | 02/07/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Sounds like a dance/pop concert in the Underworld. Love it!"